Fan Dance
by Rilina
Summary: The making of a kunoichi. Temari gen.


**Notes:** In Part 2, Chiyo thinks "It's been over ten years since Sandaime [Kazekage suddenly disappeared from the village." If Temari is 18 in part 2, this suggests that she might remember a time when her father wasn't Kazekage. Or it could just suggest that Kishimoto can't add. Or that "over ten years" "close to twenty." I'm going with the first option, since it's more interesting for the purposes of this story.

* * *

I. 

Suna's shinobi are always surprised to learn that all three of Yondaime Kazekage's children are mid-to-long range fighters. It's not a mystery why Gaara and Kankurou choose to fight from afar; the distance suits their personalities. Gaara keeps the entire village at arm's length with his sand, and Kankurou prefers to be unknown beneath his headgear and facepaint. But Temari's not a riddle like her siblings; everything about her is direct, brash, unashamed. It doesn't seem right that she can kill without ever being close enough to see her enemy's face.

As one chuunin comments after a run-in with the fifteen-year-old genin: "You'd expect her to use her bare hands."

But Temari doesn't make her first kills with punches or kicks. In fact, she doesn't even see the crucial moment, which is lost amidst the chaos of a hard fight, just the aftermath: limbs protruding from a pile of rubble and an impossible amount of blood seeping into hard-packed dirt.

Perhaps if there had been time, she would have paused to stare, to think. But the skirmish continues around her; Kankurou's puppets click and clatter, and Gaara's sand hangs in the air, threatening friend and foe alike. Temari turns away from the bodies, swings back her fan, and seeks her next opponent.

* * *

II. 

As a child, Temari enjoys puzzles, and she's good at them; it's easy for her to see how everything fits together. She is piecing one together on a certain afternoon when she realizes that she's no longer alone. Two men are standing at the threshold of her family home, silhouetted against the merciless desert sky, staring down at her from their adult heights.

One is her father; she knows him by the way he crosses his arms over his chest as she scrambles to her feet. The other is a stranger, tall and robed; he leans against the lintel as he peers down at her. Whoever he might be, he's her father's honored guest, so she greets him with all the ceremony that her father has drilled into her.

Even at seven, Temari understands what it means to be her father's eldest child.

As usual, there's no greeting, no affection, just clipped words, and this time they aren't even words of praise. "Temari, show your hands."

She wipes her palms on her yukata, then holds out her hands, conscious of the gracelessness of her chubby fingers. They're marred by half a dozen half-healed cuts; she knows they'd be more presentable if she was less clumsy with her shuriken. As it is, she seems to acquire new scratches as soon the old ones heal.

The stranger bends down to examine them, then looks her in the eye. She discovers that his face falls in friendly lines; she thinks he might even be suppressing a laugh. "Your father tells me that you train very hard." His voice is warm, smoky, like her father's favorite kind of tea.

"Yes, sir."

He shows her his own hands, tanned and thin, which have more scars than she can count. "You'll catch up to me soon."

"Maybe." She's being careful, but no one's ever taught her what the right answers are to these sorts of questions. And her father's face offers her no clues.

"I have something for you," he says, producing an item from underneath the folds of his outer robes. It hits the floor with a thud. "I won't call it a gift. Do you know what it is, Temari-chan?"

"A shinobi's fan," she answers. Fans are one of the three traditional weapons of Suna's shinobi. She's seen kunoichi dancing with smaller ones in the training grounds, cutting deep grooves into the sand with blasts of wind. This one is taller than she is. "My mother fought with one."

"This was her weapon as a genin." Her father's voice, expressionless as always.

"Go on," the stranger says. "Take it."

It's too heavy for her to lift, let alone wield, and the metal frame is cool to the touch, like rocks in the shade, and smoother than the giver's voice. She almost forgets to thank him; when she bows as she's been trained, he laughs.

"When you're strong enough to fight with it," he says, "I'll give you one of these." He taps his forehead protector with a long scarred finger.

By the time Temari understands what he meant, it's too late: he's missing, presumed dead, and her father is the new Yondaime Kazekage.

* * *

III. 

At twelve she watches the strongest of her peers become genin. For a few weeks they are a common sight in the village, those groups of children trailing in the wake of frazzled jounin sensei. Temari's filled with envy as she watches them from the high windows of the Kazekage's residence. She is grateful when the last of them finally scatter to their different training assignments, and the only shinobi on the sandblown streets are chuunin and jounin, anonymous beneath their standard gear.

No one explains why she's being held back. There's no need; she knows. It's Gaara, as always. Only Kankurou and Temari can be expected to form a cell with Gaara when he becomes a genin, and for all his power, Gaara's still only nine—and growing ever more unstable.

Temari's old enough to understand and young enough to still be bitter.

Kankurou takes refuge in his apprenticeship with the puppet squad, but Temari is left to her own devices and the desultory attentions of private tutors. There is no one who can teach her what she needs to know. Even the kunoichi that Temari admired as child are gone, casualties of some long-forgotten mission, and fan dancing is becoming a technique remembered only in scrolls.

When she understands what she's been given—an old-fashioned tool, a woman's weapon, a daughter's role—she begins to resent its weight on her back. She can carry it now, though she's not strong enough to swing it with any grace. It's most useful to her when Kankurou deserves a smack on the head.

"You're like your mother," her father tells her once, on one of the rare days when he interests himself in his children's training. Temari doesn't take his words as a compliment, though there's truth to them. She remembers all too well that, in the end, her mother was reduced to a vessel, a temporary container for Shukaku and its carrier. When Temari considers the horror of that pregnancy, it's with a vow to have a different fate.

* * *

IV. 

A few days before her thirteenth birthday, she skips her morning ninjutsu lessons and escapes to the most distant of the jounin training grounds. Unfortunately it's occupied by a man smoothly stepping through vaguely familiar kata. She conceals herself and observes his practice, alert to every flaw in his movements.

When he finishes his patterns, he turns toward her hiding place and says, "Some would kill you for watching, even though you are the Kazekage's daughter."

She steps out of her observation place, into the harsh sun. "Some would expect a jounin to have better form."

"Shinobi hide their strength." The wind stirs the scarf hanging over the left half of his face. "Go away, girl."

"You could train better if you had a sparring partner."

"Why would I spar with a chit who can't even use the weapon she carries?"

She doesn't ask how he knows, though she wonders. "I'm not weak," she says. The protest sounds feeble even to her own ears.

He doesn't answer for a long time. Then he says, "Come back tomorrow. I'll bring you something."

_Something_ turns out be two hand fans, miniature versions of the weapon she carries. She clenches her fists when she sees them, though she refuses to dignify the insult with any other response.

"Cut me with these fans," he says evenly, as if he hasn't noticed her reaction, "and I'll volunteer to be your jounin sensei."

The prospect of finally becoming a genin is too tempting to resist; she accepts the fans against her better judgment. "Do you know what else that means?" she asks as she unfurls them.

Gaara. Kankurou.

"Of course." He dodges the blow she aims at his neck. "You're cheating. I never said go."

"Kunoichi are supposed to cheat." She blocks his punch, adjusts her footing, prepares for another attack. "You know my name. What's yours?"

"Baki."

Five minutes later, she's sprawled on the sand, clutching her right knee. He looks down at her without a hint of gloating in his eyes. The two hand fans, still unbloodied, were knocked from her grip moments earlier; they lie just beyond her reach. Her face is hot with shame.

"You'll probably be stronger than me one day," he says. "You've got speed, and skill, and smarts. But right now you're just a kid who doesn't understand how to use her best weapon."

She ignores the pain in her knee, though she can tell it will require a medic's attention. "Fight me again."

"Grow up first." He pulls off his gloves, tucks them into a pocket of his vest. "I have a mission tomorrow. Jounin don't have time for games."

"Then what was this?"

He doesn't answer her, and she doesn't attempt to follow when he walks away. Her knee won't let her keep up. Instead she pulls herself up, using her giant fan as a crutch, and begins to make her slow and graceless way home. But before she leaves, she retrieves the two hand fans and tucks them in her obi for safe-keeping.

* * *

V. 

It's not easy to learn kata from scrolls, without a teacher to correct form and flow. Sometimes Temari wonders why she bothers. Maybe it's better to let the old art die, if those who practice it don't come back from missions alive. She counts through the steps, trying to heed the scrolls' words about feeling the fans as the extensions of her hands, but she mostly succeeds at stumbling over her own feet.

She spars with Kankurou one day under the watchful eye of their taijutsu instructor. Her brother's sweating under his black hood, and the purple paint under his eyes is beginning to run by the time her foot connects with his chest, followed by her fist in his gut. He curses between gasps for air; their instructor hastily intervenes and ends the match.

Later, as they split a skin of water, he says, "You're making me look slow. Man, I'm going to hurt tomorrow." There's no grudge behind his words. They've always been fairly evenly matched, and there have been plenty of occasions when Temari's been the one with bruises after their bouts.

"It's a pointless exercise," she says, holding out her hand for the skin. He passes it to her; she drinks. "On a real mission, we'd both be carrying packs and gear. Your puppets, my fan. Neither of us could move so quickly."

"On a real mission, we'd also both be using more than taijutsu. It's not your best skill, or mine. Who relies on their worst weapon in a fight?" Kankurou catches the skin as it falls from her suddenly loose grip, splashing water over her dusty fingers. "Hey, don't waste it. I'm still thirsty. What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing." She takes back the skin, and grins at his stunned expression before draining the dregs. "Ready for a rematch?"

* * *

VI. 

Secrecy is a habit in the hidden villages, and it's not easy for someone without a forehead protector to track down a jounin. Most of their work is classified; many of them don't wish to be found. In the end Temari resorts to haunting the practice ground where she first encountered Baki, and that's where they meet again, when he shows up one morning to train.

He arrives without a sound, just a flicker in her peripheral vision. He's not surprised to see her. "I suppose you want to another fight."

Temari opens her hand fans with a practiced twist of each wrist. "Routines can be a weakness," she says, quoting an old teacher. "They make you predictable."

"If I was predictable, you wouldn't have taken so long to find me. I've been back from my mission for three days. But perhaps you've been busy studying."

"More than you know."

He reads her first attack with ease, and she evades his counter with as much luck as skill. She flips back, above and behind the reach of his kunai; when she lands, she's breathing hard. For that moment she forgets why they're fighting in the first place, and all she knows the rush of blood in her veins, the hard sand beneath her sandals, the sun on her skin. She's a living weapon, and this time she's determined that Baki won't leave their fight unscathed.

He doesn't wait for a second charge, and she nearly drops her fans blocking his blows. And then there's her opening—he aims a punch at her face, and she leans back, sweeping out one arm, as if she's struggling to maintain her balance. He doesn't flinch, recognizing that her arms are too short for the fan's blades to reach him.

But this time Temari knows her fans are made of special steel, and her chakra's flowing through her arms and hands, into each gust of wind coming off the fan's edge. The cutting winds leave an angry scratch on Baki's cheek. The wound's not deep, but Temari hopes it still sting.

Then she's falling to the ground, as his next kick knocks her feet from under her.

"What was that?" she asks, indignant.

"First thing you'll need to learn as my student," he answers, "is when a fight is really over. Stand." He doesn't offer her a hand.

Temari casts away the hand fans as she jumps to her feet. "Let me show you what else I know," she says and reaches for her mother's fan on her back.

* * *

VII. 

It's their first B-ranked mission, and their target's security has proven to be unexpectedly competent. The alarm sounds while Team Baki's still regrouping; before long, their neatly planned escape has become a debacle. By the time they clear the city walls, it's obvious that they won't be able to outrun their pursuers. They'll have to stand and fight.

No one's as unhappy as they should be about this turn of affairs. After several days of surveillance and planning, they're all spoiling for action, their nerves frayed by long hours in each other's company. When Baki raises his hand, indicating they've reached the place for their ambush, Temari finds herself wishing that their enemies would come faster.

They hide and wait. From her position, Temari has the best view of the approach, and she can see the enemies' lack of shinobi training begin to show. Civilian security guards can be formidable foes in cities, where cramped streets and tiny rooms limit the effectiveness of many ninja techniques. But here in the wilderness, the guards' weaknesses are exposed, like the rocks of the cliff walls looming overhead. It's all too clear that none of them have been trained to fight in these dry canyons, or know enough to fear the tricks that full-fledged shinobi can play.

The familiar clatter of Karasu, followed by the faint whistle of flying senbon, announces that Kankurou and Baki have begun their attack on the guards' rear, driving them deeper into the shadows of the cliffs. Temari waits until the guards are crowded together in confusion, then swings her fan with all her strength. The blast of chakra-infused wind she produces brings half the cliff tumbling down upon the guards' heads. The thunder of the crashing rocks alerts them to their danger, but most don't have time to escape. The few who do find themselves surrounded by Gaara's swirling sand.

A few days after they return home, Baki asks her what she thought of the mission.

"It was sloppy," she says. "Should have been easier."

He doesn't press her further, though she knows she hasn't answered his real question.

(Years later, after she's become a jounin sensei herself, she mentions to Baki that the blood on the rocks that day made her a bit queasy.

He surprises her by laughing. "A bit? Temari, your face that day was greener than the leaves in Konoha. I'm surprised you weren't sick on the way home."

Temari's mortified. "You knew?"

"Of course," he scoffs. "I knew you better than you did yourself those days."

"Why didn't you say anything? Some sensei you were."

He shakes his head at her mock rage. "Wouldn't you have hated me more if I did?")

* * *

VIII. 

On the day Temari becomes a jounin, Baki presents her with a pair of hand fans. They're not the ones that she threw away when she was thirteen—he's careful to tell her this, lest she accuse him of being sentimental—but that doesn't make them any less of a reminder of their first meeting.

"They might be useful," Baki tells her. "They're a lot easier to conceal than that contraption you're so fond of."

She wants to point out that she doesn't really need to find ways to hide her strength. Everyone knows that she lacks the subtlety for undercover ops, and if Gaara overlooks it, being Gaara, Kankurou will certainly remind him. Nevertheless, she settles for a simple thank you. At home she stows the gift in a trunk with her other rarely-used weapons and forgets about it. She's tempted to dispose of them altogether, but Baki, she's learned, has a nasty habit of being right.

When Gaara appoints Temari as his emissary to Konoha, she's honored by his trust but also strangely reluctant to go. Once she would have jumped at the opportunity to leave Suna for an extended mission; now she wants nothing more than to stay. While she's gone the winds will erase the patterns her fan has sliced into the village's sands, and no one in Suna can rewrite them in her absence.

She remembers the hand fans as she's packing her gear on the night before her departure. It's only a moment's work to retrieve them from the trunk where they've waited since Baki gave them to her. They respond smoothly to the flicks of her wrist, snapping open and closed; the edges are sharp enough to cut flesh. And though she hasn't danced with such small fans in years, they feel oddly familiar in her scarred hands.

If she fought with them now, they could kill.

The journey to Konoha is an easy one, even alone, and friends are waiting for her at the end of it. She conceals the hand fans in her sleeves anyway. It never hurts to have a secret, especially when you're assumed to be an open book, and only she has to know they're a keepsake of home as well.

When Suna's enemies come for her, she'll be ready.


End file.
